Cross-Platform OTT App Development: Reaching a Wider Audience
If you consider any OTT App Development, you can’t restrict it to just one platform, but this app should run on different devices as well as platforms efficiently. This is what the concept of cross-platform development says.
What is Cross Platform Development?
Cross-Platform OTT App Development simply means the source code can be shared across all the available platforms. It simply means that the code written for Android should work efficiently on iOS too. Developers are required to write code just once.
Cross-platform development facilitates multiple device compatibility. Developing an app for multiple platforms and devices can be a difficult job, but one can’t ignore the audience reach it will provide. When your app works on more platforms, you will fetch more people.
Native apps for specific platforms can be developed easily at low cost, but if we talk about the audience reach, it will just cover a small fraction of the audience; the success of an OTT app will depend on the fraction of the audience it covers. A large audience base means more revenue generation.
Cross-platform development overcomes all the challenges one faces when they just work for only one platform and one device.
How do Native and Cross-Platform Development Differ?
When it comes to any application development, one should know what they want to build. If you are planning to make an app for a wide audience, you should pick the development technology accordingly.
With native app development, the developed app will work on a particular platform, and the code will be written in a specific language. In this sort of development, you will surely get limited users; on the other side, with cross-platform development, you will end up having an app that will work on different platforms, and naturally, you will get a wider audience.
Both development strategies have their pros and cons. Native apps will take less time and cost to develop, plus these apps will be more reliable.
The only disadvantage of such development would be the limited or specific audience base.
On the other hand, if you pick cross-platform development, this is a perfect fit technology for today’s dynamic development environment. This sort of development could be a bit difficult; it may require more money, time, and effort; developing an app for multiple devices and multiple platforms requires extra effort from the developer’s side.
This development takes time in the beginning, but later one need not write code again and again. On the implementation, it would have complexity, but these complexities seem nothing in front of the advantages it provides.
Native vs. cross-platform development, both are good development technologies to develop mobile applications; pick the technology according to your need, but in the case of an OTT application development, you must go for cross-platform development.
Netflix is the best suitable example of such development; this application runs on different platforms and provides Live streaming and all sorts of available content options.
Why go with Cross-Platform Development to Build an OTT Application?
Reusability of Code
Sharing and reliability of the code is the best advantage one gets with the technology because the code would be written only once and can be reused multiple times on different platforms. It may relieve developers from writing codes again and again.
Resource Consumption
As you know, cross-platform development technology writes codes for multiple devices and platforms by using the same resources. One doesn’t need to provide different resources for different platforms. It saves costs associated with the development.
Simplified Development Process
The development process for cross-platform development is smooth and handy because there are different development tools and frameworks available in the market. The use of these tools makes the process easy and consistent.
Even a developer with standard knowledge of languages can develop an app by using these frameworks.
The best example of such frameworks are:
Xamarin: It is an open-source framework that helps in the development of hybrid apps that works flawlessly on different mobile platforms.
Flutter: It uses Dart programming languages and was developed by Google, considered the best cross-platform framework.
React Native: It was introduced by Facebook; it is popular for developing hybrid as well as cross-platform applications. Java script is the basis for this framework.
Low-Cost Development
Cross-Platform development is low-cost because the same resources are used in developing code that is reused on different platforms, and with the use of different available tools and frameworks, the process of development becomes easy and speedy. The facility of reusability of code saves developing costs and developer’s efforts.
Wider Audience Reach
When you develop an OTT app with cross-platform development, you can launch your application on multiple platforms. When it covers multiple platforms, it will be available in every possible smart device; the omnipresence of your application surely will engage and gather more people for your application.